Marh 11, 2016 UMV: 137,748

Gary Gerson gives back to his alma mater, community, and country with
five-decade career in Miami
BY SEAN MCCABE

At 82 years of age, Gary Gerson, founder and

partner of Miami's Gerson, Preston, Robinson &
Company, has a resume that reads like a CPA wish
list: Amongst his myriad of lifelong
accomplishments, he became the youngest CPA
in the country at the time (21 years old in 1955),
headed the Navy Area Audit Office during his
military fulfillment serving in the Korean War,
founded his own firm, and was a rare non-athlete
to be inducted into the University of Florida's
Athletic Hall of Fame.

Born in Baltimore, MD in 1933, Gerson's success

started when he attended the University of Florida. While earning his bachelor's in accounting, Gerson
organized the first "Athletic Counselor Training Program" for the Florida Gators football team. With an office
set up directly between the offensive and defensive coordinators, Gerson hired "the best 20 students in
science, math, and the humanities [that] every ball player had to take." Under his tutelage, no player lost
eligibility to play, and the University thanked him for his service with an Athletic Hall of Fame induction in
2002.

After serving as an Assistant Gunnery and Operations Officer on a Destroyer Escort during the Korean War,
Gerson found himself as the Officer in Charge of the Navy Area Audit Office in Orlando, FL, where he handled
audit reports from all facets of the Department of the Navy.

"Only the Navy would give a 23-year-old kid the head of an audit department, in charge of millions of dollars in
contracts," he laughs.

"That responsibility, though, was very important in starting a firm," he says. "Whether I [was working] with a
multi-million dollar manufacturing company or a small office, I had the responsibility learned."

And in 1959, Gerson did just that, becoming a founder of Gerson Preston Robinson & Co. after beginning his
public accounting career a year prior. Amongst his first clients were fellow Gators from the University of
Florida, Sunswept Homes - some of the first homes built in South Florida for retirees, and many Canadian
expats and CPAs during Quebec's "Quiet Revolution," which saw a large influx of Canadian homeowners in the
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Sunshine State.

Since 1985, Gerson became a longstanding sponsor of school scholarships for students in financial need.
Amongst his first scholastic contributions were his alma mater, the New World School of the Arts, the
University of Miami, and Florida International University. In 2003, Gerson dedicated the Gary R. Gerson Hall,
home of the Fisher School of Accounting, to the University of Florida.

Gerson Hall at the University of Florda (Photo: ufl.edu)

Looking back, Gerson believes that up-and-coming CPAs should think outside of themselves when establishing
their firms and lifelong careers.

"If you’re starting a firm, you've got to do community work," Gerson advises. "All charity initiatives provide
business [and] run parallel with helping the community, and that reputation leads to good businesses. Meet as
many people as you can; that’s how people will know you...because in the end, what do we have other than
our reputation?"

"Secondly, keep up," he adds. "Read two journals every month. Assign lectures out [to your firm] – Everybody
gets a chance. They'll become an expert in that category and learn to talk [which] they can carry over to their
clients."